The Venetian Contract

by Fiorato, Marina

  Zabato let the hand drop and shook his head. ‘That will not do. If you are to hide here it is important that your origins are not known. The Turks have never been loved here, and the hatred burns hotter than ever since Lepanto.’

  And will be worse still, thought Feyra if what my father has done ever becomes known.

  ‘We should give you a Venetian name,’ Zabato said.

  ‘Cecilia?’

  Zabato inclined his head. ‘Of course. And for your family name you may take mine, Zabatini, for I will tell the household that you are my niece.’

  ‘I can stay here?’

  He shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘Where else?’

  ‘I want to see the Doge. He must help me to go home.’

  ‘To Constantinopoli? No and no and no!’

  Feyra went cold. ‘Why?’

  ‘There are no ships coming to Venice, nor leaving, while the Plague is our guest, by order of the Consiglio Marittima. You must wait her out.’

  Feyra swallowed. How long was she to be a prisoner in this place? ‘But the Doge? I can see the Doge?’

  Zabato spoke gently. ‘I am not acquainted with the Doge, although Sebastiano Venier is brother to my old master. I worked for Nicolò Venier, but he turned me from his door thirty years past. My luck departed with my love, and I moved from post to post since.’ He saw Feyra’s face fall and leaned forward, inky hands together, elbows on his knees. ‘Tonight we lost our maid. It is for this reason that I answered the door.’

  ‘Plague?’ Feyra caught her breath. If the pestilence was already inside the house then this kindly man and all his household were probably already doomed.

  ‘No. She fled to her family on the mainland.’ He stood again, and indicated a bundle of cream-coloured clothes slung over the back of the chair. ‘Here are her clothes. Rest now, dress in these at daybreak.’ He tossed them on the bed.

  She fingered the strange fabric and looked up. ‘Can I wear a veil?’

  Zabato Zabatini shook his head. ‘No. A veil will give you away at once.’ He saw the expression in her eyes and tried, once again, to brighten them. ‘You shall have our maid’s wages as well as her clothes. One sequin a week, and bed and board. In time, we will contrive a way to get you to the Doge or get you home.’

  She wanted to thank him, but had nothing to give; so she gave him the only thing she had. ‘Your hands,’ she said. ‘Rub them with this.’ She passed him a little jar of salve from her medicine belt. He peered at it doubtfully through his eye-glasses. ‘Camphor and gum dragon. Every night. And in the morning, drink the juice of a lemon.’

  He looked at his hands and back at her, then smiled his thin smile. ‘Rest now. I will call you at daybreak and direct you to your duties.’

  Just as he was leaving she found the words for the question she wanted to ask him. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  He turned back in the doorway and the smile died. ‘Cecilia was just toying with me, trying her teeth. For me it was more. You see, I loved her.’

  In the morning Feyra was awake and dressed before the knock on her door.

  Zabato Zabatini stood on the threshold. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The mattress had been lice-free, and soft; and, spared the rocking of a ship or the anxiety of her father’s health, she had indeed slept for several dreamless hours. He stood back as far as the dim little hallway would allow. ‘Let me look at you.’ She felt his eyes upon her; kindly, not predatory.

  She felt uncomfortable in the maid’s clothes. The fabrics themselves were soft and forgiving, although stiff under the armpits with the sweat of the previous owner, but the style of gown was unseemly. There was no looking-glass in her room, but Feyra could still clearly see the many faults of the dress. The throat was far too exposed, with the neckline cut almost down to her nipples. There was no opportunity for her to wind her bandeau about her breasts either, for the bodice was underpinned by a tight-laced corset which made her bosom seem enormous. The sleeves were tight on the upper arms and a cuff of simple lace at the elbow barely fell to her forearm, leaving a great expanse of her wrist exposed. The voluminous skirts, shored up by half a dozen petticoats, nearly filled the little room with their girth, and yet in length barely fell to her calves, showing a great deal too much stockinged leg. Feyra was evidently taller than the absent maid too, which meant the bodice was lower, the sleeves shorter and the skirts higher. Her bulky medicine belt which she had strapped on under the skirts, made the kirtle flare even more at the hips and her waist seem even smaller. There was a soft lace cap to be worn on the head, and by the time Feyra had bound and plaited her hair under it and viciously tucked all the tawny curls away, it only served to leave her entire neck and shoulders exposed. Her own clothes were no good for anything but the fire. Instead of the yellow slippers she put on the leather boots that sat under the chair. They were a little small and down at heel, but the leather was surprisingly soft. Her soiled, single yellow slipper she slipped under the bed, the only remaining memory of her original garb.

  She straightened up and presented herself to the man called Saturday. She felt cold, uncomfortable and exposed, but Zabato seemed pleased with her appearance.

  ‘A proper Venetian maid,’ he said, and beckoned to her. ‘Come, I will tell you your duties. Do not speak to anyone, for your accent gives you away. I have told the household you have an affliction of the tongue. Especially do not speak to my master – he has no particular quarrel with the Turks but he has a very heavy task upon him at present, and it troubles him day and night. In time, however, we may, with your permission, take him into your confidence; as he does know the Doge. Personally.’

  Feyra was puzzled. ‘Master? Are you not the master here?’

  He laughed, an odd, snorting sound, with a bitter edge. ‘No. I told you that my luck departed with your mother. Times have been hard, and I have ever been someone else’s servant. Come.’

  Feyra followed him out of the room and down the narrow stair. Soon she would have to be silent, so she asked her last question. ‘And your master’s name?’

  The stair was narrow and winding, so Zabato answered over his shoulder. ‘His name is Andrea Palladio.’

  Somewhere in the deep belly of the Doge’s palace, the two guards who had let Feyra escape stood in a windowless room. Seated before them, at a dark wood desk, was a blond-haired man who asked a lot of questions; but really his tone was so pleasant they began to believe that they might escape the whipping they had expected. On the other side of the desk sat a smaller man with a quill in his hand and the four-cornered hat of a scribe upon his head. The scribe scratched at his paper as the elder of the two guards described the fugitive.

  ‘She was dark.’

  ‘Skin or hair?’

  ‘Both, signore.’

  ‘Darker than a Venetian?’

  ‘Darker than some, I’m sure, signore,’ said the younger. ‘But really, she could almost have been a southerner, but for her clothes.’

  ‘Any distinguishing characteristics?’

  The guards looked at one another.

  ‘Anything different about her. Besides her garb, I mean. We have your description of the yellow slippers.’

  ‘Well, signore, she was … that is to say … when the people ripped away the veils …’

  ‘She was fair,’ blurted the second.

  There was a brief, intense silence. ‘You’re telling me she was beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, signore.’

  ‘You’re telling me, that we are seeking a beautiful Turkish woman?’

  The first guard, the elder and cleverer of the two, began to be afraid. There was something in the inquisitor’s tone that made him think again of the sting of the whip. ‘Well, perhaps,’ he said, ‘now you mention it, her skin was dusky; swarthy almost.’ He looked at his partner.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed the second. ‘And her nose was somewhat large …’

  ‘With a hook in it!’ finished the first triumphantly. ‘It t
ended downward as much as her infidel shoes curled up.’

  The blond man nodded with approval, as the scribe scribbled ever faster at his drawing. When he was done the inquisitor turned the drawing around to face the guards.

  ‘Would you say,’ he asked, his voice honey once more, ‘that this resembles her?’

  The guards peered at the drawing. There was a hideous hooknosed crone, black-skinned and swathed in veils and billowing breeches. Her nose turned down to meet her upturned shoes. Both men nodded enthusiastically.

  The inquisitor picked up the drawing in his ringed hand and gave it to the older guard. ‘Take this personally to the pamphleters in the Campo San Vio,’ he commanded. ‘Have one posted on every corner of every sestiere by sundown.’

  Chapter 17

  In the first light of dawn a man in a bird mask walked the silent streets of the Miracoli, his black greatcoat sweeping the pavings.

  He stopped at a door with a red cross on it and tapped it with his cane. A family, cloaked and hooded, carrying few possessions, filed out silently and followed him.

  He went to the next painted door and did the same. Soon there was a little band following him, winding through the streets, swelling in number.

  At the Church of the Miracoli, the procession stopped as Annibale raised his cane. He entered the church where he had been christened, but he did not genuflect, nor gaze at the considerable marble marvels of the interior. Instead he climbed the small stair to the stone arch that arced over the street like a dun rainbow to a little convent tied to the church. From the latticed windows he could see the families huddled below, waiting for him. He felt a sudden jolt of panic. But he had put this thing in motion, now he must see it through.

  He walked across the arch to the little door beyond and rapped on it, as respectfully as he could, with the knob of his ebony cane. An elderly nun in a black habit and white wimple opened it. La Badessa, the Abbess of the Order of the Miracoli, with whom he’d had a long conference yesterday. ‘Are you ready, Dama Badessa?’

  She nodded, serious. ‘Yes. We are ready.’

  ‘And you are sure?’

  She gave the ghost of a smile. ‘We are a pastoral order, Dottore. If the families go, we go too.’

  Annibale turned, and the Badessa and the sisters followed him downstairs. He waited while the Badessa genuflected before the marble altar. She shut and locked the aumbry set into the altar wall which contained the Host. After bowing once to the tabernacle she burned two wads of holy oil before the golden cross and laid the cross down on the marble. On her way back to her nuns in the aisle the Badessa did not do reverence to the supine cross. The priest had died the night before, and for the moment, this was no longer a church, but a beautiful, marble mausoleum. God was gone, and now the sisters of the Miracoli must be gone too.

  Outside, Annibale led the way, like the pied piper who had stolen the nurselings. But his growing band had attracted attention – Dottore Valnetti, pulling his cart of false, bottled hope, dropped the red handle and ran after Annibale. Annibale set his teeth behind his mask. He’d known that this moment would come.

  ‘Annibale? Where are you taking these people?’

  ‘To my new hospital.’

  ‘What the … Which is where?’ Valnetti spluttered.

  Annibale was silent.

  ‘These are my patients.’ Valnetti’s voice grew louder.

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘You can’t do this, Cason.’

  ‘And yet, I am.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘We differ in our methods. I have tried yours, and now I am going to try mine.’

  Valnetti started to wheedle. ‘We can reach a compromise.’

  ‘I do not think so.’ Stony, Annibale swept past Valnetti, but Valnetti shot out a restraining arm.

  ‘My family is from Genoa, you know.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘There’s a legend there.’ Valnetti stumbled to keep up with Annibale, speaking fast and loudly. ‘A shepherd called Nicholas, who was little more than a child, had a vision from God and led thousands of children across the Alps to crusade against the Muslim infidel.’ He ran to overtake his junior. ‘They fetched up in Genoa, all these lost children, in their multitudes. Nicholas believed that the sea would divide, and the baby crusaders all sat on the shore waiting for it to happen.’ He stopped Annibale with an out-thrust arm, gathering a bunch of the younger man’s black coat at his chest. His out-thrust beak clashed with Annibale’s. ‘Nicholas was not a visionary, Cason, he was just a stupid child.’

  Annibale batted him away and walked on, silently. Valnetti was stranded in the steady stream, some of the followers barging him a little as they passed. He tried to appeal to one, then another, but gained no answer and had no choice but to trot after Annibale until the company reached the Fondamenta Nuove.

  As Annibale directed the families into the waiting boats Valnetti could do nothing but watch. When the younger doctor jumped into the largest boat, he delivered his parting shot.

  ‘I’ll have you struck off the Consiglio Medico,’ he warned.

  Annibale shrugged. ‘It’s a duty of care.’

  Valnetti snorted down the long nose of his mask. ‘Since when?’

  Annibale did not even have to think about it. He put out his foot and pushed the boat from the dock.

  ‘Since now,’ he said.

  At the head of the little flotilla, once again a figurehead, Annibale had the worst cases with him in his boat as the forerunners. When they reached the Lazzaretto Novo he saw that Bocca had carried out the instructions he had given him during the previous week. The red cross had been scrubbed from the boathouse; there would be no doleful markings here. A brazier had been erected on the jetty. When it was lit, the boats were to stop here; when it was dark, they should not come near. Bocca had dug a shallow pit at the gate’s threshold, and filled it with potash at Annibale’s instruction, so that each visitor’s feet would be purified before entry and on leaving.

  Annibale told the other boats to wait and he took his little band of desperately ill patients through the gates, some on litters carried by the less afflicted, some still able to walk, some stumbling with crutches or leaning on their fellows. Annibale led them into the Tezon, settled them in their beds and gave each one water. Then the great doors were closed.

  Returning to the boats he fetched the families one by one and settled them in the almshouses, with strict instructions not to enter the Tezon, no matter how much they might long to visit their loved ones. Two houses were left unoccupied: the little ruin next to the church and the corner house by the torresin, which he’d taken for his own. He left the children playing under the tree walk of white mulberries, and took himself off to the Tezon.

  But first he looked into the little church. There was a figure there, kneeling. Annibale retreated, not wishing to disturb her prayers, but the Badessa turned and stood. ‘Come in,’ she said.

  He walked forward a little tentatively, and slid the broad-brimmed hat from his head. The beak he left alone. ‘Forgive my mask,’ he said to to her. ‘It is for your safety more than mine.’ But he bowed awkwardly to mitigate any disrespect; not towards the altar but to her. ‘I do not wish to disturb you.’

  She spread her gnarled hands. ‘I am not saying anything which cannot be continued later.’ She pointed a knobbled finger to the rafters. ‘Our conversation will take a lifetime; it will not be concluded today.’ She smoothed her habit over her ample hips. ‘What are you doing here, Dottore?’

  He fiddled with a splinter that protruded from the pew and smiled ruefully, inside his mask. ‘Honestly? I don’t know.’

  She smiled too. ‘I think I do. You are about to embark upon a great undertaking.’ She sat down on one of the benches and invited him to do likewise. ‘When you came to me yesterday, and tended to poor Father Orlando, you reminded me that our order of the Sisters of the Miracoli was instituted for the incurabili – the incurables, whom God had smitten with leprosy and oth
er untreatable conditions first brought back from the Crusades. Those first patients knew there was no cure for their afflictions. The first sisters knew it too. But what they believed in was the Miracle.’ She looked at him. ‘When you came to me with this idea of yours, it humbled me. It was for this that I and the sisters came with you. We were in the business, then, of delivering miracles. And, it seems, we still are.’

  Annibale, listening, said nothing.

  The Badessa clasped the simple wooden cross that hung about her purity. ‘Son. I heard Valnetti’s story, and men say it is true. Nicholas and the Children’s Crusade sat on the shore and waited for a miracle. But there is another story told too, a greater story, part of the greatest ever told. A man once led his people to the promised land, and there was an ocean in his path. He did not sit and wait for the waters to cleave; he crashed his staff upon the ground and demanded that the seas part.’ The Badessa rose, and the coloured glass of the single picture window turned her simple habit to motley. She turned and looked down at him. ‘And they did, Dottore. They did.’

  Over the days, the little island buzzed with activity like a hive of bees. The sisters of the Miracoli did wondrous work filling in the arches of the Tezon with wattle and daub. The boy Salve, despite his afflictions, seemed to understand simple instructions and had been a great help; more, if truth were told, than Bocca. There was a wattler among the families of the Miracoli, and he had directed operations, while the sisters of the Miracoli, well known for their robust and practical rule, were not too otherworldly to soil their hands.

  Annibale sent some of the sisters to purchase good linen from the market across the water on the mainland in Treporti where the sickness had not yet reached. Bocca and Salve were directed to draw clean water from the well each morning, and to fish the lagoon every day, as well as stocking the pools with trout and cultivating clusters of oysters on great knobbly ropes. One of the nuns, a beefy woman named Sister Ana who was skilled in rearing fowl, bought a brace of broody hens and a cock and rowed them back in a little coracle, wearing the live birds slung over her shoulder like a squawking stole. Annibale believed that if food could be freshly grown or fished it could not be infected with bad air.